Senegal will receive a combined African Development Fund loan and grant amounting to 18.74 billion CFA francs approved by the Fund's Board on Wednesday, April 23, 2014 in Tunis, to finance the country's Water and Sanitation Sector Project (PSEA).

Senegal launched PSEA in 2005 as part of the Millennium Drinking Water and Sanitation Programme (PEPAM) to ensure the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

The project comprises (i) a rural component designed to improve access to drinking water supply and sanitation for the people of the Louga, Kaffrine and Tambacounda regions, in continuation of two previous Bank operations and (ii) an urban component to rehabilitate and extend the Dakar and Ziguinchor sanitation networks.

The project also aims to improve the sector's governance through:

The establishment of an appropriate monitoring and evaluation mechanism;

Implementation of the action plan for integrated water resources management;

Support to privatized management of rural drinking water facilities.

Half a million residents of the Louga, Kaffrine and Tambacounda regions, as well as an estimated 250,000 people in Dakar and Ziguinchor, with women constituting 52% of the population in the regions and districts, will directly benefit from the project.

The PSEA is expected to:

Improve the drinking water supply and sanitation (DWSS) access rate;

Reduce by at least one half, cases of malaria and diarrhoeal diseases;

Lower health-related expenses; and

Create approximately 5,000 temporary jobs and 500 permanent jobs, of which 2,500 for women and 300 for youth.

Two previous Bank projects have helped improve rural drinking water and sanitation access rates in the three target areas. However, wide access-rate disparities remain.

The project is in line with the objectives and thrusts of Senegal's Economic Emergence Plan (PSE) under the National Economic and Social Development Strategy (SNDES 2013-2017), adopted on November 8, 2012. It is also consistent with the Bank's intervention strategy in the country (Country Strategy Paper, 2010-2015), and fully consistent with the Bank's Ten-Year Strategy (2013-2022) and its new Gender Strategy (2014-2018).

The project will be implemented in four years at a total cost of 29 billion CFA francs (39.49 million Units of Account). The ADF loan (20 million Units of Account) and grant (€6 million) will finance 64.56% of the project while the Government of Senegal and the beneficiary communities provide the remaining 35.44% of the costs.